


Conditioned

by ageless_aislynn



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, ReverseSnow, Snowellsweek2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 11:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19250122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ageless_aislynn/pseuds/ageless_aislynn
Summary: Caitlin just wants to wash her hair. ForSnowells Week 2019, Day 1, prompt: Time Loop





	Conditioned

**Author's Note:**

> Yay, another Snowells Week, one of my favorite times of the year when I get to legit make time to spend with Caitlin and Eobard, lol! \o/ I love writing them so much. They're my happy place, what can I say? :D (And right now, I'm writing this in the literal middle of house repairs, where sawing is going on on all sides of me, so I definitely needed my happy place! O_O )
> 
> This also has a home at [Tumblr](https://ageless-aislynn.tumblr.com/post/185661741690/conditioned-agelessaislynn-the-flash-tv). If you read, I hope you enjoy! :D ♥

As soon as she stepped into the shower, Caitlin spotted the upside-down bottle of conditioner, signaling it was empty, and groaned softly in frustration. She'd forgotten to replace it after her last shower.

 _Maybe I have an extra under the sink?_ she thought hopefully, taking the bottle with her.

Padding unselfconsciously naked in front of the open doorway into her bedroom, she tossed the bottle into the small trash can then bent to rummage with decreasing hope beneath the sink.

 _I can't believe I forgot to buy conditioner. Well, I'm going to have to just deal with a bad hair day, I suppose,_ she mused, making her way back.

As soon as she stepped into the shower, Caitlin spotted the upside-down bottle of conditioner, signaling it was empty, and groaned softly in frustration. She'd forgotten to replace it after her last shower.

 _Maybe I have an extra under the sink?_ she thought hopefully, taking the bottle with her.

Padding unselfconsciously naked in front of the open doorway into her bedroom, she tossed the bottle into the small trash can then bent to rummage with decreasing hope beneath the sink.

 _I can't believe I forgot to buy conditioner. Well, I'm going to have to just deal with a bad hair day, I suppose,_ she mused, making her way back.

As soon as she stepped into the shower, Caitlin spotted the upside-down bottle of conditioner, signaling that it was empty, and groaned softly in frustration. She'd forgotten to replace it after her last shower.

 _Maybe I have an extra under the sink?_ she thought hopefully, taking the empty bottle with her.

Padding naked in front of the doorway, she paused, feeling inexplicably like she wasn't alone. She grabbed a bath towel and wrapped it around herself before walking to the doorway.

"Is anybody there?" she asked but when she tried to peer into the other room, an unseen force prevented any part of her from going through. Even the empty bottle in her hand came to a sudden stop as if there were a thick pane of pane of glass blocking the way.

There came the familiar sound of a speedster in motion and she sighed in relief, opening her mouth to call Barry's name.

As soon as she stepped into the shower, Caitlin spotted the upside-down bottle of conditioner. "What the--?" she muttered, snatching up the empty bottle and stepping out of the shower without intending to, as if her body was moving on automatic.

"You seem to have gotten yourself into a bit of a predicament, haven't you, Dr. Snow?"

The distorted voice made her shriek and she instinctively pitched the bottle at the man in the yellow suit lounging in her bathroom doorway. It hit an invisible barrier and clattered noisily to the floor.

She grabbed a towel and hastily tucked it around herself. "What are _you_ doing here?"

Despite his blurred face, his grin was evident. "When you're sensitive to the Speed Force, you feel any sort of time disruption like an itch you can't scratch. Thought I'd see what was going on."

"Nothing that's any of your business," she snapped, picking up the conditioner and throwing it in the trash.

He held up his hands in mock surrender. "Oh, well, if you're _enjoying_ being in a time loop, who am I to interrupt?"

As soon as she stepped into the shower, Caitlin stumbled to a halt with a muttered curse, though wasn't able to keep from picking up the empty conditioner bottle. She quickly wrapped a towel around herself as she stepped out of the shower and glowered at the man smiling at her.

"This isn't funny," she said, throwing the bottle in the trash can hard enough it bounced back out onto the floor. She left it.

"No, this is actually Trattenburg's Theory but with accelerated tachyons, isn't it?" His tone became wistful as he stopped vibrating. "We were going to try this one together."

He had a lot of nerve sounding hurt. "It's not like I..." she scrambled for an appropriate metaphor "...binge-watched a series without you. You've deceived me -- us -- for years. You're _evil_. I don't owe you anything."

His blue eyes looked surprisingly sad in his mask now that they had stopped glowing red. "Loop," he said softly.

"What?" she was saying as she stepped into the shower. Without pausing, she grabbed the empty bottle and donned the towel again.

"So, do you know how to break a time loop?" she asked, swiftly introducing the bottle to the trash can.

His melancholy demeanor faded. Good, the last thing she needed right now was the Reverse Flash moping because she'd hurt his feelings.

"It's simple with the right ingredients."

"Which are?"

He removed his gloves with twin flourishes. "You need physical contact with someone outside of the loop," he said, pulling back his mask and ruffling his hair.

"Excuse me?" she said flatly.

He shrugged. "I don't make the rules." He walked deliberately through the barrier in the doorway as soon as she stepped into the shower.

She growled. _Bottle, towel, trash can_ , in quick succession until she stood before him with her hands on her hips. The towel slipped and she hastily tucked it around herself again.

He gazed back, unfazed by her thunderous expression. "You can always think about it for a few more cycles of the loop," he offered. "Might be interesting to see how far you can stretch it, how inevitable some things are and how malleable others can be made to--"

She made her choice in a rush, not wanting to have to _wash, rinse, repeat_ yet again. And maybe, just maybe, there was a bit of worry that if she thought about it too much, she'd never get the nerve to do it.

Striding forward, she reached up and pulled him down to her level, kissing him squarely on the mouth. He went still, surprised, and that made her falter back.

"Fascinating that your mind went straight to here," he murmured, his gaze heavy-lidded. "Just a hand-clasp would've sufficed."

Her cheeks burned scarlet. "Then what was all... _that_ about?" She gave a vague flutter of her fingers at where he'd been standing a few moments ago. 

"Theatricality. You know I have more than a little tendency to be overly dramatic." His eyes were going from hers to her mouth and back again. When he gently tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, she instinctively leaned into his hand. He smiled.

"I'm also an opportunist," he continued and the next thing she knew, he'd picked her up around the waist and was kissing her with the kind of enthusiasm she'd only ever seen him have for amazing scientific breakthroughs.

He walked them backwards through the doorway into the bedroom and her ears popped as if she'd changed altitude.

"That break the time loop?" she muttered and he leaned back, looking thoughtful.

"Yep," he proclaimed, hopping her up onto her dresser and resuming the kiss.

She put her hands up -- surely to push him away, right? Reverse Flash, evil guy who'd impersonated her friend and mentor for all these years? No, she couldn't possibly be kissing him back and putting her hands in his hair and there was _no way_ that she had her legs hooked over his hips because that would just be _ridiculous_ , now, wouldn't it? It had to just be because he looked so familiar--

_\--though he'd been "confined" to a wheelchair for years now and she hadn't seen him standing in a long while and certainly not while wearing such an infamous yellow outfit--_

\--it was just triggering some ingrained, conditioned response--

 _\--not that in all this time they'd ever been more than colleagues, had they? Things had always been professional between them, no matter how many times_ thoughts to the contrary _had tried to creep in. He'd been Harrison Wells, her boss, and there were lines that she could not cross with him--_

\--but he _wasn't_ really Harrison Wells and, for the first time, she realized that that meant the restrictions she'd mentally put on him _as_ Harrison Wells no longer applied. And he was a really good kisser--

_\--one might even say exceptional, even--_

\--and there was a small part of herself that seemed to be thawing--

_\--or freezing over into a brand new configuration--_

\--and things that didn't seem possible before now seemed very possible, indeed.

He broke the kiss with a sigh, leaning his forehead against hers. "Seems that _someone_ has finally tardily tracked down the source of the time loop. You ever want to try Trattenburg's Theory again, give me a call."

He presented an actual business card printed on ridiculously high card stock with a phone number on it and no name.

"You're giving me your card?" she asked, arching a brow.

He grinned broadly. "Be interesting to see if you turn it over to the rest of Team Flash to try and track me down or if you keep it to yourself, hm?" His eyebrows waggled, then he rather impishly kissed the tip of her nose. "See you around, Dr. Snow. Oh and by the way, you've lost your towel."

"Wha--? _Oh!_ " She slid down from the dresser to retrieve the towel from where it had puddled to the floor at some point -- _How did I not notice that?_ \-- and hastily tied it around herself once more. By the time she looked up again, he was gone.

Almost immediately, her doorbell rang and she opened the door to find Barry in his Flash suit.

"Cait, you okay? There was some weird thing going on with the Speed Force and Cisco and I finally pinpointed it to here."

"Yeah, um, let me just get dressed and I'll tell you about it," she said, inviting him in.

"Oh, and is this yours? It was on your doorstep..." 

He held up a new bottle of conditioner -- _her brand, but of course_ \-- and she had to bite her lip to hold down a smile she couldn't explain.

"Yeah, that's mine," she confirmed and when she went to put it up, she also took the opportunity to hide the business card.


End file.
